I have always hated Slick Rick Pitino...

[MUCam]

....why must he make it so hard for me to keep hating him?

"I think they should (get the name Big East)," Louisville coach Rick Pitino told USA Today on Thursday. "I think without question, the Catholic 7 deserves the Big East name. They should have, in my estimation, broken away from the football schools three years ago. I think they waited way too long. They should have been fed up a long time ago.

"You have some of the great, great traditions in college basketball. They should have gotten together, made their strong basketball league, sell their own deal and they should be the Big East. They should be playing in Madison Square Garden."

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9000502/catholic-7-schools-keep-big-east-name-new-league-next-season-according-sources

[Dawson Rental]

Thanks for the sentiments Rick, but there is no way that we get the deal that we're getting this time around - especially keeping the Big East name - if we had done this three years ago.

You can easily forget that Rick's ancient history included taking Providence to the NCAA Final Four.  Quotes like these bring that back.

[tower912]

The timing wasn't right 3 years ago.   It took the latest round of football driving the bus off the cliff of conference realignment to galvanize the presidents of the basketball-only schools.     3 years ago, it would have looked petulant.    Today, after what has happened the last 2 years, it looks like a bunch of principled players seizing the initiative and making a statement.